Also, strange behavior in the hierarchy pane. I have tried this on Unity 2017.1 and 2017.2_0f3. I have playmaker 1.8.5. I sent a PM to Alex requesting access to the beta version but I do not have it yet. Is this issue solved by the beta?

There is a Unity bug where sometimes the Unity API Updater fails to update the project.

There is another Unity bug where Unity imports the last version of an asset downloaded, ignoring whether it's the right package for the version of Unity you're currently running.

Either way, the fix is to explicitly download Playmaker again, while running the version of Unity you want to use it with. So in Unity, go to Asset Store then Download Manager and download Playmaker again. Import and install.